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Python vs. Perl

Terry Hancock hancock at anansispaceworks.com
Thu Dec 16 00:16:15 EST 2004 
On Saturday 11 December 2004 04:10 pm, Michael McGarry wrote:
> I intend to use a scripting language for GUI development and front end 
> code for my simulations in C. I want a language that can support SQL, 
> Sockets, File I/O, and shell interaction.

In my humble opinion, anything complicated enough to need a GUI is
something you want to write in Python, not Perl.  Python is a very
object-oriented language.  I know you can do OOP in Perl, but it was
not really designed for it.


As for your earlier regex question, Python and Perl regex syntax is
quite simple, but Python puts regexes in strings, which allows you to
do some nice tricks using Python string handling on the regexes.

Some people have demonstrated how this can be used to make
regexes much better source-documented (and regexes are notoriously
hard to read, so this is worthwhile!).  E.g.:

digit = r'\d'
phone_number_re = re.compile(digit*3 + '-' + digit*4)

In general, Python has substantial support for "literate programming"
and/or self-documentation.  As a person who programs only part-time,
while having many non-programming tasks which I have to juggle, this
is invaluable.  Python is the only language I could reasonably expect to
be productive in while caring for a toddler.  ;-)

As it sounds like you are doing scientific work, you may well find that
this serves you as well.

Cheers,
Terry

--
Terry Hancock ( hancock at anansispaceworks.com )
Anansi Spaceworks  http://www.anansispaceworks.com
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